The Sorcerer's House

James Crossley · 16 Mar 2010, 03:01 · from 2010-March.txt.gz

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From: ishmael at drizzle.com (James Crossley)
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:01:18 -0800
Subject: (urth) The Sorcerer's House
In-Reply-To: <43960c851003151459u3c498829jd31ae3bb3983d571 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <C7C4347E.B5F8%ishmael at drizzle.com>

On 3/15/10 1:59 PM, "Russell Wodell" <wrustle at gmail.com> wrote:

> As in Castleview?and parts of Free Live Free, there is such a plethora of
> weird incidents, conveyed at really breakneck speed by a typically laconic and
> unemotional Wolfe narrator, that I find the necessary suspension of disbelief
> very difficult. 
> 
> Wolfe is very much smarter than I am, so he must anticipate something of this
> reaction. The story seems to demand being read straight; yet there are, for
> another example, no less than three sets of identical twins at large, plus an
> evil dwarf bent on rape (who is explicitly identified with a Dickens character
> I will not name here).
> 
> Does he want us to laugh? I add that Wolfe's few explicit attempts at humour,
> such as his Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe parodies, have always struck me as
> leaden failures.
> 
> 
> Russell Wodell
> 
I?m about two-thirds of the way through Sorcerer?s House and find myself in
agreement with much of what you?ve said.  I can?t really imagine how this
stuff reads to anyone not very familiar with Wolfe?s work.  The characters
seem inconsistently buffoonish and brilliant, and major events are glossed
while inconsequential conversations take up paragraphs?to all appearances.

As with other late-period Wolfe, the surface reading is off-putting not
because of baroque vocabulary or complexity, but for opposite reasons.
Everything is played so straight and so (apparently) simplistically that
there?s next to no pleasure to be had for anyone not racking his brains to
keep up with the subtext.  Now, I love the puzzling subtext and think the
book is worth reading just for that, but what I always really enjoyed about
the greatest Wolfean works was the richness available on all levels.

Does anyone on the list really find these late volumes?I?m thinking of Evil
Guest and Pirate Freedom, and even Memorare?enjoyable as anything other than
puzzleboxes?

James 

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